RyeBlog

MIAMI, FL. In what the National Weather Service is describing as a “major breach of privacy”, pictures of the first tropical depression of the season have been released on the internet. The first tropical depression of the 2006 Atlantic hurricane season formed Saturday in the northwestern Caribbean Sea, and was expected to become the year’s first named storm. The National Weather Service auctioned off exclusive rights to publish photos of the storm for $3.50 to Earth & Sky Magazine - which won’t hit newststands until next week.
The increased public interest in tropical storms that led to the early leaking of the photograph is also creating quite a stir in the forecasting community. Forcasters this season are having a hard time even naming the storms.

Normally, it’s easy. We just go around the room and write down the list of in-laws we hate. This year, each storm is getting a great deal of attention. It’s like each storm is a celebrity or something. With other celebrities popping out kids named “Suri” and “Shiloh”, we feel a great deal of pressure to provide storms with names that are equally strange - preferably with a pseudo-religious backstory. We’ve thought of “Abana” - but who wants a storm that is “Stony; constant; dependable”. Then we moved to “Aijalon” - but that sounded too much like some kind of ghetto black kid name.

The forecaster wouldn’t comment on what the final name for the storm would be, telling us we would have to “Wait for the announcement, just like everyone else.” When pressured further, he admitted that he really had no clue.